All the Wild That Remains

Starred review from February 2, 2015
Channeling writers Wallace Stegner (1909â1993) and Edward Abbey (1927â1989) and their mutual love of the wide-open spaces of the American West, Gessner (The Tarball Chronicles) delivers a spirited, ecologically minded travelogue, based on his exploration of the wilds of Colorado and Utah in summer 2012. In the author's estimation, Stegner and Abbey were "two of the most effective environmental fighters of the twentieth
century," though "their tones couldn't have been more different." Stegner, a Pulitzer Prizeâwinning novelist, practiced environmental advocacy through consciousness raising and by supporting legislation to protect the Western landscape. Abbey, regarded by many as a neo-Thoreauvian, encouraged "monkey wrenching" or environmental sabotage to obstruct the development of public lands. Gessner quotes liberally from the novels and essays of both writers, as well as from works by other nature writers and conservationists, as he tours a rapturously described Western wilderness endangered by drought, forest fires, and fracking. He writes with a vividness that brings the serious ecological issues and the beauty of the land into to sharp relief. For instance, he likens a dried riverbed overflowing from a sudden flash flood to "a dehydrated man choking on his first gulp from a canteen" and says of a landscape marred by oil drilling that "it looked as if someone had taken a knife to a beautiful woman's face." This urgent and engrossing work of journalism is sure to raise ecological awareness and steer readers to books by the authors whom it references.

January 1, 2015

This engaging book provides an intimate look at Edward Abbey (1927-89) and Wallace Stegner (1909-93), two of America's finest authors, both of whom chafed at being pigeonholed as regional writers. Certainly their fond, passionate focus was the American West, but there is much universality in their concerns. Gessner (Return of the Osprey) traveled to places they haunted, read all he could of their writings, and spoke with people who knew them well. His smooth, literate text is enhanced by photographs of Stegner and Abbey as well as chapter notes that read well. Stegner authored 46 works, including 13 novels, and won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Abbey wrote 28 books, was a Fulbright Scholar at Edinburgh University, and may be best known for his book Desert Solitaire, which is often said to be as worthy as Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Stegner, clean cut, traditional, with a PhD, and Abbey, an uncompromising anarchist and atheist with a 1960s-ish appearance and lifestyle, provide rich grist for Gessner's mill, which he fully exploits for the benefit of any reader. Gessner himself has penned nine books. All three authors qualify as important environmentalists and writers. VERDICT Highly recommended for everyone interested in literature, environmentalism, and the American West.--Henry T. Armistead, formerly with Free Lib. of Philadelphia

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